Thoughts from a Working Mommy

I have been home all day today, fighting a head cold that has not been kind.  In between sleeping, medications and laundry-- yes even sick moms do laundry-- I have had a heavy heart. 




I have reposted and read so many articles about the Mommy Wars that rage around us women.  I have always felt the need to stay out of it when it comes to real life battles, but lately it has really been an open wound with salt added every so often.  I feel the need to say something now, when I haven't in the past, and I pray not to hurt anyone or make anyone feel like they are not enough.




I found myself in a conversation the other day with a group of lovely ladies.  All but myself and one other girl were SAHM (stay at home moms- for those who might not know)  In the midst of girl talk, the subject of working/stay at home moms came up. The comment was made that Working moms get to leave during the day.  Such a small trivial comment, but to those of us who "get to leave" it is a slap in the face. 




Please understand that in this world, all of us women who are lucky enough to have the title of "Mother" have pretty much the same goals.  We want to love, we want to nurture, we want to have the very best for our children.  This is where it gets sticky... Opinions get mixed in and feelings start getting hurt. 




Some families- fewer and fewer these days, have the true blessing of one person ( usually the mother) staying home to care for the children on a daily basis. They think this is what is best for their children.  This IS a great model... in fact my mother and father chose this model for us as a family.  They sacrificed much to keep this model.  But this model is not one size fits all, and sadly in this day in age it is mostly one size fits no one. 




So what do we ( the women who don't have the choice of staying home ) do when we cant fit this idyllic family model?  We adapt.  We work 8-10 hours a day or more and rush home to spend as much time as possible with our children.  We stay up late cooking and making school lunches while looking over homework and making sure everyone is bathed and ready for another day.  We clean, we do laundry and find time to make sure our children feel the love we have for them. We crawl into bed truly exhausted and then peel ourselves back up every morning to repeat the cycle. Its not perfect, but it is our life and we are trying our best to make a life for our children that will help them grow and mature into beautiful, loving, caring adults. 




This hybrid model of mothering is the overwhelming majority of women that I know and love.  My sister, my best friends, my co-workers.  But, somehow we feel that we are still not enough.  We cant live that life of waving our kids off to school, doing housework while playing with your toddler, make cookies and welcome your children back from school while you prepare a perfect meal off of pinterest.  And because we can't, the pressure builds and we tell ourselves we aren't enough, we aren't as good as the other moms, we just don't make the grade.




As I write this, I KNOW in my head that these are un truths.  I know that my children love me and one day they will understand the sacrifices I made to ensure they had everything they needed.  But my heart cries to be with my babies every second of every day.  My heart tells me I SHOULD be at every field trip and every class project day. 




I write all of these deep and personal thoughts because I want the other women in my life to understand.  Please understand we are all mothers, we are all doing what we need to do to provide for our families, the loves of our lives.  My way isn't better than yours and your way isn't better than mine.  We are all trying our best in this broken but beautiful world.  Working Mom, you are not alone!  SAHM, you are not alone and you are truly blessed! God gave us these magnificent children.  They are an amazingly huge commitment of time, tears, heartbreak and joy.  Let's concentrate on building each other up instead of comparing and trying to measure up.




With that off of my chest, I am going to go re medicate and snuggle with my son while he watches Nick Jr.  I am even thankful for this head cold, it gives me a day to spend with my toddler.  There is an upside to everything!

The Night that Pinterest Failed.....

As a working mom I battle the ever present feelings of guilt for missing out on my children's daytime moments.  By the time I reach home, I am exhausted and hungry and grumpy, with precious little left to dedicate to my babies.  With Peyt climbing the pantry shelves and Maddy and Trav fighting over whether to watch Sponge bob or Scooby Doo, my patience is quickly lost and I end up LOOSING it on one or all of my children....  AND enter the GUILT monster. 

Tonight I made a conscious decision to do better.  I can't keep falling into the same rut- or this is at least what I tell myself as I drive away from work and head out to pick up the boys.  We drive to the store with a grocery list which includes ingredients for a  Pinterest recipe I have been eying for awhile. Home made cheezits.

 There is something you have to understand... You could NOT grow up in my father's house without liking the delicious, crunchy, salty mini cracker known as a cheezit..  My father has passed this snack food addiction down to my own dear children.  He even keeps a box of the cheesy snacks in his pantry most weeks " for the kids"  sure dad... sure **wink wink**

I digress...  This evening I was determined to make it through the evening AND accomplishing a few simple things;

1.  Make dinner, from scratch for the family
2.  Make lunch , from scratch for myself ( so that I don't give into my Panera cravings )
3. Ensure that the TV stayed off for the duration of the evening
4.  Make homemade cheezits with the kiddos

With number 1, 2 and 3 accomplished, I cleaned up the kitchen in preparation for the cheesy baking to begin... 

Peyt, the wild child watching from the counter.. apparently pretending to be a puppy...

 We followed the recipe to a T... we rolled out the cheese dough... we cut them into shapes and poked holes in them to allow air to vent.  We salted them with sea salt and then placed them in the oven to bake into yummy cheesy crackery goodness...

While we waited for our cheezits to bake we went into the eerily quiet living room to listen to Maddy read to us... ( As you remember, I was very determined to keep the television OFF )

 

The timer dinged 8 minutes later and I pulled the crackers out to cool....

 

Then it was test tasting time....  Please check out the faces of my children to see if the crackers were IN FACT a success or a failure....

 

 

So, tonight Pintrest failed the Rustay family.  It did not provide us with a "healthier" non preservative filled replacement for our favorite crackers...  But we did HAVE FUN tonight, we did spend time together without meltdowns from either mommy or the kiddos... In my book, this makes tonight a successful evening.  Maybe.. just maybe... this is a bend in the road.  Maybe I can stop feeling so super guilty everyday when I look at the kids and see my failures in the form of time missed out on and things not accomplished. 

We can look back on tonight and say, Remember that night we made those super YUCKY crackers??  That was fun!  I can strive to make more evenings like tonight a reality.  Or maybe I can try to find that happy medium I have heard so many people talk about...  Either way I have a feeling there is a trip to the grocery store for real cheezits in my future!!

With Faith Like a Child

As I write this, I am sitting outside on the porch under the dappled sunlight filtering through the branches above.  I hear the gleeful laughter and shouts of my children as they take turns bouncing each other and leaping from side to side of their trampoline.  

They find unspeakable joy in the act of bouncing up and down.  They enjoy the moment their stomach flip flops as in that moment they are air born.  It strikes me suddenly and with stark clarity that I can learn from my children...

Life being the insane, wild, ever changing ride that it is, our family has been through quite a few loops over the past couple of months.  Through them, I have been "soldiering through", doing every thing in MY power to get through the day,the week and sometimes the hour...

After a month or so of this, I got to the point where I couldn't make it any further.  The mental and physical strain of sickness and lack of sleep made it hard for me to even make it out of bed.  In that terrible moment, I heard God speaking to me.  "Give me your problems Rach.  You don't have to do this on your own.  In fact you CANNOT do this, but I can."

In this supremely humbling moment, I realized something truly embarrassing and horrifying... Not ONCE had I gone to my Father for the help I so desperately needed.  For the past year, I had gone on living a comfortable existence, not depending on anyone or needing anything.  When small obstacles got in the way, I worked through them without even thinking about it.  That is, until I hit this brick wall...

After that day, my eyes have been opened.  I see God's hand everywhere and I am truly depending on him everyday.  He speaks to me in so many ways, especially through the music I hear throughout the day.  Matt Maher will be on the radio singing,

"And when I cannot stand, I'll fall on you, Jesus you're my hope and stay.

Lord I NEED You, oh I need You.  Every hour I need You."

Or as in the case of today, we sang "Give Me Faith"  I wanted to cry as I heard the words.

" I need You to soften my heart, to break me apart.  I need You to open my eyes, to see that You are shaping my life."

Do you remember wayyyyyyy back at the beginning of this post?  I said I am learning from my children.  They fully trust that every time they soar high into the air, their feet will always find a safe place to land.  They trust with no thought, they are confident in EVERY way.  As they soar in the air without aim, so do I soar through life head on with no breaks.  How is it that I find my full faith lacking.  My loving Father will always find a safe place for me to land.   I have been floating along for so long.  I am here now, admitting that without Him I have NOTHING.  

Since this earth shattering realization, life on the outside has not changed very much.  The trials and tribulations that we ALL face are still there,  but I am here to say that My God has supplied the strength and joy that I am lacking and THAT, my friends, is something to be joyful about!

Confessions from a Mommy of Three....

My mind, even on a good day is sometimes a dangerous place to be.  As I dove into a monstrously large pile of clean laundry that needed to be folded like 2 weeks ago, I found my mind wandering.  ( Anyone that knows me at all knows this is tied up with bathroom cleaning as my least favorite chore)  Keeping my mind busy while I fold endless shirts, shorts and undies is a defense mechanism against thinking about this most distasteful chore...

I found and posted one of my favorite verses this evening on Facebook.   "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.  Proverbs 3:5-6"   This verse started tumbling through my head while I was matching and rolling socks (ewwwww)  and it hit me how hypocritical I have been this summer.  I learned that verse long ago, and at times I have thought about its meaning.  But I haven't been trusting, acknowledging or looking for direction, NOPE I have been wallowing in the enormity of the situation I have been in and trying to handle the whole thing on my own. And how might you ask have I been handling this on my own???  Not well at all... shocker, I know!

The realization of all of this tonight has given me the perspective I have been lacking since June.  The endless days of kids, work, kids, housecleaning, kids, small doses of sleep and then back to kids, work, kids ... well you get the picture.... has left me frazzled, mean, distant, distraught and at the end of my rope. 

I am ending my ramblings for the evening.  The kiddos are fresh out of the bath, in pj's and tucked into bed for the night.  The laundry is folded... still on the table but folded!!  The kitchen is semi-clean and I am dragging myself to bed for the evening.  The cycle doesn't end, but my attitude sure can.  My path right now is kids, work, kids, housecleaning and kids...  I choose to trust in Him and follow this path as far as He takes me.  My blessings come from those kiddos and the journey Brian and I are on in this thing called life.

Where the Wild Things Are......

We started off the week with a trip to the zoo!  The kids woke up singing about the trip and did not stop until we finally pulled into the parking lot.  They spoke excitedly of what animals are their favorites and which exhibit they wanted to see first.  Here are some snapshots of the fun we had that day!!!

Consulting their maps

Don't feed the humans!

Giraffes!! Trav's favorite animal.. at least this week....

Snack time!

Catching a ride on Mr. Rhino

Train ride around the zoo!

Mommy and Sir Peyt-peyt

All About Daddy

This Father's Day has been a first.  On Friday, we got a call that Skip was not feeling like himself.  He couldn't feel anything on one side of his body.  Brian and I immediately thought the word STROKE.  Later that afternoon, Brian rushed into the house and confirmed the worst.  Skip wasn't right and we NEEDED to get him to the hospital.

Hours later, our fears were confirmed.  He had a stroke.  Our lives have changed in a moment.  Brenda's husband, Brian's father, our kid's Grandpa.  Skip carries many roles in his life, and for awhile on Friday I was trying to think of what it would be like in a world where Skip wasn't there and those roles were vacant.

Thank God, he has survived and he even has great promise of fully recovering through hard work and will power, both of which my father-in-law has in spades.  This weekend went by in a blur.  Trips back and forth from the hospital, picking up and dropping off kids.  Before we knew it, Sunday was here.  Father's Day.

The kids and I had grand plans of staying at home and resting.  After running everywhere for two days straight, home was what was needed.  Brian of course had to be at the hospital.  He needed to be there for his dad and for his mom.  We carved out some hours Sunday morning for our family.  Time to celebrate the Father in our family unit.

Brian requested pancakes, so early that morning I packed up the boys and headed to the store ( a quiet house is another way of saying thank you! )  After getting home I made, and we feasted on pancakes, biscuits and fruit.  Even O.P. got in on the pancake action.

Afterwards the kids geared up in their new soccer cleats and shinguards  and played outside with Daddy before he had to go.  We took the time to enjoy each other.  We took the time to make some memories.  If anything, this past weekend has taught us to appreciate these things just a little bit more.

Maddy's Big Day

Maddy graduated from Kindergarten at the beginning of June.  We have been so busy that I find that its the middle of June and I haven't had the chance to post the special occasion...

June 1, was dedicated to all things Madison.  I took of work to make sure that I could spend the whole day with my little girl who is growing up much too fast.  I picked her up from her last day of school and we headed to lunch, her choice... Olive Garden of course!  After enjoying soup, salad and bread sticks to her hearts desire, we headed to the nail salon to get manicures and pedicures in preparation for the big night.  After our nails were done, we headed home to get dressed for graduation.

Maddy remembered ALL of her lines for the evening's program and walked across the stage to get her "diploma" that had to be returned at the end of the night....  At the end of the evening they announced the children that won the Christian Character Award this year.  They chose one little boy and one little girl from each class.  My heart could not be any happier when I heard my Maddy girl's name announced as the recipient. 

It was a night to remember.  I cannot help but fast forward in my head to 12 years from now when Maddy walks across that stage once again.  My firstborn makes me so proud.  I love you Maddy Lynn <3